But with this latest report comes a warning: they’re drawing their employment growth figures in part on education and construction. Education will have a hard time hiring until California’s budget is brought under control, and as one economist says, construction got us into this mess last time.
Instead, he suggests that California take this opportunity to wean itself from its low-tech dependency and return to research and manufacturing.
California isn’t expected to shake off its double-digit unemployment rate until 2013, economists say.
From the San Bernardino Sun:
The UCLA Anderson Forecast’s first quarterly report of 2011 suggests the state’s unemployment numbers, although improving, will continue to exceed national figures for the next couple of years.
“We don’t expect it to reach 9.7 percent until the first quarter of 2013 and we expect (it) to remain elevated at 8.9 percent,” said Jerry Nickelsburg, UCLA’s senior economist.
The state’s economic forecast predicts the unemployment rate will remain at 10.5 percent next year as it struggles to create 1.3 million jobs lost during the recession as well as find employment for new entrants into the workforce.
Read the full article here.